Rayleigh scattering

Rayleigh scattering, dispersion of electromagnetic radiation by particles that have a radius less than approximately 1/10 the wavelength of the radiation. The process has been named in honour of Lord Rayleigh, who in 1871 published a paper describing this phenomenon.

The angle through which sunlight in the atmosphere is scattered by molecules of the constituent gases varies inversely as the fourth power of the wavelength; hence, blue light, which is at the short wavelength end of the visible spectrum, will be scattered much more strongly than will the long wavelength red light. This results in the blue colour of the sunlit sky, since, in directions other than toward the Sun, the observer sees only scattered light. The Rayleigh laws also predict the variation of the intensity of scattered light with direction, one of the results being that there is complete symmetry in the patterns of forward scattering and backward scattering from single particles. They additionally predict the polarization of the scattered light.

Learn More in these related articles:

November 12, 1842 Langford Grove, Maldon, Essex, England June 30, 1919 Terling Place, Witham, Essex English physical scientist who made fundamental discoveries in the fields of acoustics and optics that are basic to the theory of wave propagation in fluids. He received the Nobel Prize for Physics...

Most incident photons are scattered by the sample with no change in frequency in a process known as Rayleigh scattering. To enhance the observation of the radiation at ν0 ± νi, the scattered radiation is observed perpendicular to the incident beam. To provide high-intensity incident radiation and to enable the observation of lines where...

The scattering of unpolarized light by very small objects, with sizes much less than the wavelength of the light (called Rayleigh scattering, after the English scientist Lord Rayleigh), also produces a partial polarization. When sunlight passes through Earth’s atmosphere, it is scattered by air molecules. The scattered light that reaches the ground is partially linearly polarized, the extent of...